[davepl]

FWIW my reman factory compressor does work with R-134A just fine so far.. frosts up the discharge tube pretty quick (not sure if that's a good thing). That only matters if you care about stock appearance, though, I believe they're inferior in most every way.

Inferior... but functional!

At the price of R12 I don't think I'd fill an unproven system with it until, for example, I had filled it with "cheap" R-134 and made sure it held for several weeks. But then you'd probably be happy with the R-134 and never do it. Which is kind of what happened to me...